“I—I don’t think I can go.” She began to cry.
“Don’t cry, Proud One.” He seemed awkward in dealing with her tears. “The lieutenant will want you back; he need never know you’ve been in my arms. I wouldn’t tell that if they tortured me.”
“Don’t you think I’ve considered how David would react if he knew? That’s not the reason. I—I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you.”
He shook his head and made a gesture of dismissal. “Don’t do this to me, Proud One. You’ll change your mind later, regret it, and that would tear me apart. Be realistic. With him, you’ll have money, a life of ease as an officer’s wife. You know what you can expect with me.”
“Can I expect the kind of passion you gave me that one afternoon? Ne-mehotatse, my dearest,” she whispered. I love you.
“If you only knew how much that day meant to me,” he whispered, “but when the lieutenant comes—”
“I’ll send him away.” She went into Two Arrows’s embrace, cutting off his protest with her lips. For a moment, he held himself rigid as if afraid to believe the choice she’d made.
Then he groaned as he took her in his arms, holding her tightly, returning her passion with his own, kissing her lips, her eyes, her throat. “If you’re lying, I don’t want to know it.”
“Dearest, next time the soldiers catch up to us, I’ll go out and tell them to stop chasing us; tell them I don’t want to leave.”
“You think the lieutenant would listen?” Two Arrows held her close, kissing her with wild abandon. “He would think you had lost your senses; he would take you away by force.”
“Then from now on,” she declared, “I am no longer Glory Halstead, I am Proud One, a Cheyenne Woman.”
He kissed her deeply; passionately. “When I am finally killed by soldiers, it will have been worth it to say the Proud One was my woman!” He pulled her down on the blankets by the fire and began to unlace her doeskin dress.
“Don’t talk about being killed,” she protested, taking his bronzed face between her two small hands. “But whatever happens, I want to be your woman.”
He began to undress her, kissing her all the while. “Tonight, I’m really going to make you my woman,” he whispered, “because we have all night to make love.”
She slipped her arms around his neck, looking up at him as he brushed a lock of black hair back from her forehead. Then he kissed her deeply, stabbing his tongue deep into her mouth, teasing hers to caress the insides of his mouth.
She reached up to open his shirt, splaying her fingers across the sun dance scars on his powerful chest. In the glow of the small fire, she could see the high-boned planes of his dear face, feel the corded muscles of his virile body. She kissed his throat, working her way down until she raked her teeth across his nipple.
He groaned aloud and held her mouth against his chest while he reached to finish unlacing her dress. Then he rolled over on his back, pulling her on top of him. Her breasts spilled out of the open bodice like ripe fruit hanging down to be enjoyed by his greedy mouth. Glory arched her back, her hands on each side of his head, offering her breasts for his pleasure. She sighed heavily as his hands massaged and caressed them. “Kiss them,” she demanded, “I want to feel the heat of your mouth on them.”
He complied, sucking hard at her nipples while she closed her eyes, arching her back. He reached up and clasped her back, pulling her down against his face so that he could bite and tease her breasts.
“I’d like to kiss you all over, too,” Glory breathed hard at the feel of his hot mouth on her.
“As the Proud One wishes.” He stood up, stripped off his buckskins. He stood there in the firelight, scarred and powerful, virile as a magnificent stallion, his manhood big and hard as steel. Now he looked down at her with smoldering eyes. “Do what you will; tonight, I’m here to please you.”
“And I’m going to please you!” She came up on her knees, embraced his naked, lean hips, kissing his manhood in a sign of submission. He was hot and hard and throbbing with the seed he had to give. As she explored him with her mouth, he gasped and tangled his fingers in her dark hair, holding her face against him, her naked breasts against his sinewy thighs. His manhood was pulsating with the seed he had to give, and she caressed it with her tongue as he pressed her down on him hard and she relaxed her throat and took it while he writhed against her mouth.
His seed was on her lips as he fell with her to the blankets by the fire. “Have you ever put your mouth on another man?”
“You know I haven’t! I’ve only submitted without emotion to my brute of a husband.”
“My Proud One,” he whispered, and pulled her on top of him. “Pleasure yourself with me; ride me; ride your stallion.”
Hesitantly, Glory lay on him, feeling his rigid maleness against her belly. Then she spread her thighs and mounted him while he fondled and caressed her breasts.
Her velvet sheath slid down to envelop his sword, taking all of it and gasping that he was so big. He seemed to be spearing her deep inside. She splayed her fingers across his mighty chest, stroking his nipples while he writhed under her. He was here for her pleasure, she thought as she began to ride him slowly.
“You feel so good around my manhood, Proud One. I want to be deeper still.” He reached up and put his hands on her small hips, grinding her down on his hard rod. Then she lay on him and kissed him, putting her tongue deep in his throat, while he twisted with need under her, and began to move her up and down on him with sheer strength. “Ride me, Proud One,” he begged. “Ride your stallion!”
She felt him pulsating deep inside her and she had a terrible need to have his seed within her wet velvet depths. It was a need as old as womankind. She wanted him to breed her and pleasure her, leave her satisfied.
“Ride me, Proud One, ride me!” He was arching under her, his hands grinding her hips down on his dagger as she built a rhythm, harder and deeper, harder and deeper; the intensity and the emotion building at the slap-slap-slap of flesh slamming violently against flesh.
“Take it, Proud One, take all I’ve got!” And at that instant, he arched so that he gave her his full length even as she ground herself down on him and felt him shudder and begin to explode within her.
At that precise moment, her body began to convulse, squeezing his maleness, wanting every drop he had to give. When she could reach no higher crescendo of feeling, she cried out and pitched forward into his arms, her breasts flattened against his chest.
For a long moment, they clung together, gasping, their bodies locked onto each other’s; his giving, hers demanding.
For what seemed an eternity, the only sound was the crackle of the campfire and both of them gasping for air.
Finally his hands reached up to embrace her and stroke back her tangle of hair while his lips brushed her eyelids. “Proud One, I never had anything like this, not even with Pretty Flower. God help me, I care for you more than my life, more than my people, more than anything on earth!”
“And I’d give up everything for you, my love.” She lay spent and satisfied in his embrace, listening to his heart pound in her ear, feeling loved and protected.
He reached to pull the blankets over both of them, but they did not disengage their bodies.
She lay on him, warm and happy, staring into the fire. “I never knew it could be like this. My husband took me mechanically and brutally. If I objected, he hit me until I was senseless and then took me anyway.”
She felt his body tense with anger. “Why did you marry the beast?”
She shrugged. “At that time, Howard was an older man of wealth. He offered to pay off the debts on Father’s struggling little store in Virginia. Father insisted I marry him. I guess Howard always thought of me as something he had bought and paid for and could treat any way he wanted.”
He rolled her into the hollow of his shoulder. “How could any man not love you?” Two Arrows whispered, and kissed her forehead with tenderness.
She didn’t answer, lost
in the bad memories. When Howard began to lose his fortune through bad business deals, his temper got worse. He beat her for the slightest infraction. “I was too proud to tell anyone that Howard beat me,” she said, “and it wouldn’t have done any good anyhow.”
“My poor Proud One.” He leaned over and brushed his lips across hers. “I wish I had this cowardly husband of yours here; I’d show him what a beating was.”
“I don’t need you to protect me; I’ve been looking after myself a very long time.”
“I take care of what’s mine”—his voice was soft but firm—“and now you belong to me.”
She didn’t want to admit it, but it felt good to snuggle down against that powerful chest and know he would look after her. “Father lost the store and came to the Territory to take over the sutler’s trading post at the fort. He never forgot how I had humiliated him by filing for divorce. Men sometimes ask for a divorce, but not women.”
“But if he mistreated you—”
“No one wanted to hear that. The sheriff said he didn’t want to get involved in a domestic dispute; the preacher said I must not be obeying my husband like the Bible said, the ladies of the town gossiped about me and expected me to put up with it because men have always beaten wives if they needed it. Since I was too proud for my own good, I probably deserved it, they said.”
He ran his fingers across her cheek in a gentle caress. “So you left that state?”
Glory nodded. “No one would give me a job, and Father needed free help at the sutler’s store. I thought I’d get a fresh start, a second chance, but the scandal about the divorce followed me. I met David, and it didn’t seem to make any difference to him, but I think it would to his father.”
“You had no children?”
She shook her head, not wanting to remember that last terrible night before she had fled the house with the little bit of money she had saved from her household funds. Howard had wanted a son, but Glory hadn’t produced one. She thought if she gave him a child, Howard would change and be a good husband. She went to a doctor in another town who said there was nothing wrong with her; it must be her husband. She didn’t tell Howard, knowing it would throw him into a rage.
Then his brother Nat, a Kansas rancher, had come to visit. Glory shuddered at the thought.
“What’s the matter, Proud One?”
“I—I was remembering that final night. My husband’s brother was visiting, trying to talk Howard into joining him as a partner on his ranch, since Howard’s business was failing. I— I can’t tell the rest; it’s too awful; I never told anyone; not even my father.” She choked back sobs.
He kissed the tears from her eyes. “No one will ever hurt you again.”
She had to tell someone; she had kept it bottled up too long; and there had been no one to tell who would not have been shocked or pitied her. “They—they were both drinking, and Howard began to complain to his brother that I hadn’t given him a son. That’s when I blurted out that it was his fault, not mine. That enraged him.”
He held her very close, saying nothing, waiting.
“His brother, Nat, said maybe he could get the job done. Howard laughed and said at least they’d be keeping it in the family.” She was weeping now, weeping as she had never done in her whole life; not even in the worst days of her marriage. She had pushed these memories from her mind although sometimes late at night they returned as bad dreams.
“Oh my Proud One, don’t tell it if it hurts that much.” Two Arrows held her against him, kissing her gently.
“No, I need to tell you. They—they ripped my dress almost off while they were laughing and trying to hold me down so Nat could rape me. I grabbed a heavy brass candlestick and knocked both of them unconscious. Then I took the little bit of money I’d been saving for years from household funds and ran out into the night. I went to another town where he couldn’t find me and filed for divorce.”
“It’s too bad you didn’t hit them harder; if I’d been there, I would have killed them for you.”
She buried her face against his chest. “I had a letter a few weeks ago from Howard saying he had lost everything, was leaving Virginia, and would I want to put the marriage back together?”
“What did you tell him?”
“I never answered it, but I’ve always feared he might come after me. My father would have let him take me.”
“You’re safe now, Proud One.” He cuddled her close against him. “No wonder you struck out when I grabbed your filly’s bridle.”
“I reacted without thinking, remembering Howard.”
“I will never hurt you.” He bent his head and kissed her.
“You won’t make me go back?”
“The arrogant, uppity lieutenant will have to kill me to get you back.”
She thought a moment, running the tips of her fingers over his high-cheekboned face. “Am I your revenge then?”
“No, you’re my love; for whatever time I have left before the soldiers kill me. I’m going to make love to you all night, Proud One, and if the soldiers kill me tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll count the moments I spent in your arms well worth the cost!”
He kissed her throat and she reached up, pulling him down on her as her passion began to burn again.
The fire turned into glowing ashes before they were finally sated and dropped off to sleep.
The dawn was only a pale lavender light on the eastern horizon when the pair was awakened by the camp crier galloping through the camp. “Ayee! Make ready! Make ready to fight! The soldiers are coming!”
Fifteen
David chewed his pipe stem in frustration as he looked toward the low hills and gullies barely visible in the coming dawn. Major Lewis’s forces had cornered the escaping Cheyenne, and the only thing holding the army back from full attack was the possibility that Glory might be up in those rocks somewhere. He glanced over at Muldoon, hunched on his fat buckskin gelding and rubbing his swollen hands. “Your hands hurting you again?”
“Aye, gettin’ where I can hardly hold a handful of cards and—”
“Muldoon, your gambling’s going to be the death of you yet.” He scolded, looking from the Irishman to the rolling land ahead of them.
“Nah, not the gamblin’, but this blasted cold. Ah, even the fires of hell sound good on a chill day like today.”
David’s mind was busy with thoughts of Glory, the inevitable confrontation with Two Arrows. “You stubborn old coot, you ought to retire.”
“And what would I live on?” He blew on his hands and rubbed his red ears. “I’ve naught kith nor kin, know nothin’ but horses, and have nothin’ put aside.”
David didn’t answer, watching the movement along the north Kansas ridge as the Indians seemed to realize the soldiers had moved into position during the night. Was Glory up there somewhere waiting to be rescued? She had to be; she just had to be.
White-haired Major Lewis cantered his bay horse over to the pair. They both saluted, and the major returned the gesture. “The men are in position to attack, Lieutenant. See if you can negotiate with the red devils since you know this scout so well.”
David tapped the cold pipe against his saddle, scattering the tobacco, tucked his pipe in his pocket. “Yes sir, I’d like to try to talk them into giving up their hostage, surrendering.”
“Pardon me for being so blunt, Lieutenant”—the older officer cleared his throat—“but the possibilities that the woman is still alive seem slim and none.”
Glory. The thought of her seemed to make his soul ache. No man could ever love a woman as much as David loved her. “Beg your pardon, sir, but Glory Halstead is a survivor; I think she’s alive and waiting up there in the rocks for me to save her.”
The major’s blue eyes reflected doubt. “Excuse me for mentioning such an indelicate subject, Lieutenant Krueger, but in most of these cases, the woman’s been ... outraged, so she might have already killed herself as any self-respecting woman would have done—”
“She
would never kill herself,” David snapped, and closed his mouth in a tight line to keep from shouting at his superior officer. Outraged. A polite euphemism for rape. David had a sudden vision of Glory spread out and held down while virile bucks took their turns on her beautiful, ripe body. He flinched, thinking it was all too easy to imagine Two Arrows’s dark, virile body entwined with hers. He’d seen the way the Indian looked at Glory as if he had never wanted a woman as much as he wanted her.
“Lieutenant, are you all right?” David realized with a start that the major leaned forward on his horse, staring anxiously at him.
“I—I’m fine,” he lied, “if I can just have a guidon and a white flag, sir, Muldoon and I will try to parley.”
The major signaled for the yellow cavalry banner, and a private galloped forward with it and a white banner. “Lieutenant, you don’t have to volunteer. They might shoot instead of sending out riders.”
David shook his head. “No, Two Arrows has too much pride for that; he’d rather kill me in some honorable hand-to-hand combat.”
“Honor? A savage?” The major threw back his head and laughed. “Surely you jest!”
“No, he wants the pleasure of looking me in the face when he kills me for the same reason he kidnapped Mrs. Halstead; I whipped him like a dog, and he hasn’t forgotten it. On the other hand, if I get the chance, I’ll put a bullet in his brain without a second thought.”
“Now, Davie lad,” Muldoon protested, “you don’t mean that; you’d not even give him a fightin’ chance?”
“None!” David’s voice was as cold as his heart. He saw the senior officer’s eyebrows go up, no doubt both at David’s comment and Muldoon’s familiarity. “We’re old friends, served together since the Civil War,” he explained.
“Still, highly irregular,” the major grumbled, casting an icy stare at the red-faced Irishman. “All right, Lieutenant, if you want to give negotiating a try, go to it. Mind you, it’s against my better judgment. With the newspapers and telegraph spewing all this ridicule about how the whole army is being outsmarted and outfought by a handful of ragtag savages, I’ll not take a chance on them giving me the slip. If you can’t get them to surrender, I intend to blast them all to hell about the time that sun peeks up over that far hill.” Major Lewis nodded toward the horizon that was now pale lavender with just a hint of new gold and rose.
Cheyenne Song Page 21